The present disclosure generally relates to a vacuum loader truck. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a system for monitoring the operation of a vacuum loader truck to determine the amount of debris contained within a storage tank of the truck.
Two of the main challenges in determining the debris level in mobile vacuum loaded tanks is the variety of the material that can be in the tank and the severe operating conditions within the tank. The range of materials includes liquids, solids, slurries, powders, mixtures, and bulky aggregates. The severe conditions include vibrations, high winds, flying debris, wet, dry, slurry, sloshing, and dirt contamination. The current state of the art in determining debris level consists of one of three methods.
The first method includes a floating ball inside the storage tank that connects to a pointer on the outside of the storage tank via a sealed pivot. This method suffers from limited range, susceptibility of the floating ball to being buried by dry material without floating, possible damage if the floating ball is in the air stream and not being effective if used forward of a baffle when de-watering is used. In such an application, the floating ball will only indicate liquid debris level forward of the ejector plate, not solid debris behind the ejector plate.
The second method includes a paddle wheel switch. This is a spinning paddle wheel inside the debris body that spins continuously until debris level reaches the wheel and prevents the wheel from turning. A paddle wheel switch indicates only one discrete level, not a range of levels and is subject to sticking and damage from flying debris. Paddle wheel switches also quickly get dirty and become ineffective.
The third method includes a sight glass to view inside of the tank. A sight glass quickly gets dirty and becomes ineffective and cannot be read remotely.